Broken starts as single mother Hope (producer Nadja Brand) returns home after a date to her young six year old daughter Jennifer (Megan Van Kerro), after making sure Jennifer is alright Hope goes to sleep herself. Suddenly Hope wakes up to find herself in a wooden coffin, a day later a man (Eric Colvin) lets her out but then ties a rope around her neck to a tree & balances her on a log, inside a deep wound in her stomach is a razor blade to cut through the rope & save herself from choking, Hope manages to reach inside her own body to find the blade & cut the rope. After this first test the man then chains her to a tree & makes her clean his pots & pans & tend a little vegetable patch in the middle of a forest, as you would. Hope tries to escape but the man punishes every attempt. Is Jennifer still alive & will Hope be able to find help?<br /><br />This British production was written & directed by Simon Boyes & Adam Mason who also edited it & it's a bit of an odd film, it's supposed to be a stark horror thriller but it just feels like something is missing. Available in the US in both 'R' rated & 'Unrated' cuts I will be basing my comments on the longer version although a few extra gore shots doesn't significantly alter the film overall. Broken is a strange film & hard to categorise, it starts off feeling like a Saw (2004) imitator with a gruesome trap of some sort but then it settles down into a bizarre imprisonment film as this seemingly random man keeps Hope chained to a tree in a forest so she can wash his dirty pans & grow vegetable's for him. Nothing is ever revealed about the man, his name, his origins or why he is doing what he is or how he even managed to kidnap Hope in the first place or why he choose her & the list just goes on. The two barely speak a word to each other & even then it's just short sentences, there's no idle chit-chat here as Hope develops a strong bond with a flower & the opportunity for a conversation with a flower is limited to say the least. You know, to be honest I was sitting there watching Broken & I was just thinking to myself when Hope slashed the back of that guy's leg but he still had her back didn't he realise things were not going to work out? I mean if he wanted a woman to cook & clean for you (who doesn't?) maybe he should try the lonely hearts ads in the local paper, & this time it might not be a bad idea to not actually kidnap & mutilate said woman, you know because that sort of thing generally doesn't help fledgling relationships does it? There's also a strange twist ending which makes little or no sense, why did that guy keep Jennifer in a run down shed? Surely that's an extra mouth to feed? Also when Hope was trying to break the door down why didn't Jennifer say anything? You know something like 'don't open the door mum or you will get a face full of nails' would have been helpful, wouldn't it?<br /><br />Personally I felt the film was lacking something after an OK start & a fairly intriguing premise it goes nowhere & never gives any sort of reason for anything that happens or even where the action takes place. There's a bit of gore but not that much, there's a couple of scenes of people reaching inside stomach wounds, someone pulls some stitches out, there's a broken leg, someones head gets bashed in & a tongue is pulled out which begs the question how do none of these extreme wounds not become infected without proper medical treatment & they quite frankly live like tramps? Considering that Hope has been living wild in the middle of a dirty forest exposed to the elements her white shirt is remarkably clean at the end after forty odd days isn't it? Just off topic for a moment I have no idea why this film is called Broken but a quick IMDb search brings up at least another 38 films with exactly the same title.<br /><br />With a supposed budget of about £500,000 this is well made & has decent production values but I didn't find it scary as much as a little unsettling. Filmed in some wood here in the UK in Cambridge somewhere although it could have been shot anywhere since one tree looks much like another. The acting didn't do much for me & that woman who screamed constantly got on my nerves, sure in that situation in real life you might scream that much but it's no less irritating to have to listen to.<br /><br />Broken is a film that may grip & disturb some but the lack of story or logic behind anything that happens meant I couldn't get into it at all, that's just my opinion so treat it as such but Broken didn't do much for me & ultimately felt a bit pointless.